Hutchison accused the NASA chief, a former astronaut, of short-changing deep space manned exploration in favor of channeling NASA’s scarce resources to commercial spacecraft companies developing cargo and crew delivery services to reach the space station by 2017.

Hutchison used a hearing by the Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over NASA to tell Bolden that the Obama administration’s proposed $17.7 billion budget for the next fiscal year cuts the Orion-deep space rocket system by $326 million while boosting proposed spending on commercial crew systems by $330 million.

“I’m frankly floored as you know from our conversation that it would be so blatant to take it right out of Orion and (the space launch system) and put it into commercial crew rather than trying to accomplish the joint goals that we have of putting forward both and making sure that we didn’t take away from the timetables for the future to shore up commercial crew,” Hutchison told Bolden.

“How can you explain that?” Hutchison demanded.

Bolden, a retired Marine Corps three star general and four-time shuttle astronaut, said NASA’s proposed budget provided “a balanced” approach that would enable commercial spacecraft to test-deliver cargo to the space this year and deliver U.S. astronauts by 2017.

Deep space exploration would follow, with an Orion flight test in 2014, an unmanned test flight of Orion paired with the heavy lift rocket in 2017 and a full-up manned test flight of the entire system in 2021.

President Obama wants astronauts to land on an asteroid by 2025 and orbit Mars by 2035.

Hutchison urged Bolden to cut down the number of commercial spacecraft companies being supported by NASA to shift that money to NASA’s efforts to return to U.S. astronauts to NASA-owned and operated spacecraft.

Bolden resisted Hutchison’s proposal.

“I need to give these companies time to learn lessons that NASA has learned through blood,” Bolden said, signaling no intention to trim the number of commercial spacecraft companies being supported with contracts from NASA.

Bolden underscored that his “passion” for the Orion-heavy lift combination “exceeds anybody in this room,” adding that he had fought for the deep space system as hard as he had fought for every program within his budget-squeezed agency.

The gap between the end of space shuttle operations last summer and the onset of a new commercial crew capability in 2017 remains a thorn in NASA’s side, Bolden said.

The space agency has contracted with Russia to deliver 24 U.S. astronauts to the orbiting laboratory aboard the workhorse Soyuz spacecraft over the next four years as the timetable slips for NASA-approved commercial spacecraft to step in to deliver U.S. astronauts to low-earth orbit.

“I’m going to pay the Russians $450 million a year for every year that I don’t have an American capability to put humans into low earth orbit,” Bolden testified. “I know you don’t want to do that. You and I have both agreed. But that’s the price I pay.”